


well-formed

by consumptive_sphinx



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Míriel has a very strong presence despite not technically being present, and my controversial opinions thereof, names and their connotations, some shibboleth opinions tucked away in there too, the hair color discourse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-08-29 10:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: When Maitimo is thirty-one his grandfather (Mahtan, his mother’s father, not Finwë who calls him Nelyafinwë) names him Russandol for his hair.Or: the things we give to our children by choice, the things we pass down by mistake of nature, and the things other people hand them to carry.





	well-formed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaylin881](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaylin881/gifts).



Maitimo is nineteen years old when he begins to hate his name.

He doesn't say so to Nerdanel, of course, or to Fëanáro; Fëanáro has long given up calling him Nelyafinwë except in the most official contexts and Maitimo very much doesn't want to undo that progress, and Nerdanel would be hurt. He doesn't think it was poorly chosen _deliberately;_ Nerdanel doesn't always think before she speaks but she's never cruel on purpose.

It — it isn't that anyone says, right out, what they’re all thinking. But it's there, in the way that people look at his eyes, the way they look at his mouth, his hands, his face, so like his father’s mother’s, and in the way they flinch away. And Maitimo smiles and says nothing and he knows that _well-formed_ was not a name well-chosen, not for him.

It wasn't on purpose. Fëanáro knew what he was doing when he gave Maitimo the name Nelyafinwë (and oh how they fought about it, his mother glaring at his father every time anyone used Maitimo’s fathername in their house) but Nerdanel believed it when she gave him the name she did.

Still. When his baby brother is named Makalaurë, a name that doesn't reference his appearance at all, Maitimo is grateful.

 

When Maitimo is thirty-one his grandfather (Mahtan, his mother’s father, not Finwë who calls him Nelyafinwë) names him Russandol for his hair.

Maitimo loves his hair. A perfect match for the copper in his father's workshop, it's brighter than Nerdanel’s russet-brown, darker than Mahtan’s fire-red, all his own.

Nerdanel makes a face at her father when she hears it, disapproving but playfully so. Maitimo — Russandol — immediately adopts the name. _Russandol. Russandol,_ and he doesn’t say, _know me for what is mine._

 

Makalaurë and Carnistir and Curufinwë and Findekáno call him Russandol; Tyelkormo mostly calls him “brother.” The Ambarussa and his younger cousins (half-cousins, he says around Nolofinwë, because he and Nolofinwë might have grown up nearly-together but it’s important that they both remember that in some things Russandol is still his father’s son, but he calls them his cousins whenever Nolofinwë isn't in the room) call him Nelyo.

Nolofinwë calls him Nelyafinwë when their fathers are nearby and Russandol otherwise, because Russandol is his father’s son but they _did_ grow up together. Indis calls him Russandol when Fëanáro is there to hear and Nelyafinwë otherwise, and Russandol can't tell whether she means it as an insult or a gift, any more than he can when she calls Fëanáro _Serindion_ rather than _Finwion_ as the rest of Finwë’s family does.

Fëanáro calls him Russandol. Mahtan calls him Russandol. Arafinwë calls him Russandol, says it so naturally that one almost doesn’t notice the statement he’s making. Turukáno calls him Nelyafinwë, always uncomfortably formal, and Artanis calls him Fëanárion. Finwë still calls him Nelyafinwë, except when he tries to call him Nelyo, which never fails to make Fëanáro’s face twist in fascinating ways. And Nerdanel calls him Maitimo.

 

“You have your mother’s face,” they say to Makalaurë, although it isn't at all true, his face looks more like Fëanáro’s which — if the portraits are to be trusted — looks remarkably like Míriel’s. But to say that Makalaurë looks like his father’s mother, silver haired and long fingered with narrow shoulders and sharp cheekbones and a sharp jaw, would be impolitic and everybody knows it. Makalaurë doesn't correct them, but neither does he agree.

When Curufinwë is born they say he looks like Fëanáro; his hair is dark and he bears his names proudly, and so the comparison is to his father and not his grandmother. Curufinwë doesn't seem to mind, although he pushes himself hard enough in the forge that Russandol is nearly-certain that his name is a pair of shoes to fill as much as it is a badge of honor.

Carnistir and the Ambarussa truly do look like their mother and her father; they have her broad face and her wide-knuckled hands. Carnistir’s hair is the same brown as hers, and he flushes like she does; the twins’ hair is fire-red like Mahtan's like but they've gotten Nerdanel's freckles, her mouth, her smile. There is no awkwardness there when people comment on the resemblance.

Tyelkormo looks like nobody so much as Finwë, black haired and dark eyed with a square jaw and a straight nose. You wouldn't realize unless you thought about it, though; Finwë’s face is never sunburnt, his cheeks never streaked with mud, his hair never tied into a loose bun or held in place with a twig.

And “You have your mother’s face,” they say to Russandol, and it isn't _as_ untrue for him as it is for Makalaurë — you can see red in the brown of Nerdanel’s hair, he has her shoulders, he has her build — but it's more untrue than it isn't. He looks in the mirror and examines his face and asks where each piece of it comes from — Fëanáro’s pale silver eyes, Finwë’s cheekbones, and Míriel’s jawline, Míriel’s mouth, Míriel’s brow. His hair isn't silver but it curls the way Fëanáro’s does, the way Míriel’s did. Sometimes Finwë starts when Russandol smiles.

“You have your mother’s face,” and he doesn't, he doesn't, he has her shoulders and the red from her hair and nothing else of her. But they cannot say _You look like Míriel,_ and so they don't.

 

Carnistir learns to sew, learns to weave, learns embroidery. Nobody comments, not to his face, but Russandol sees the raised eyebrows when nobody thinks Fëanáro’s family is looking.

Makalaurë studies in Alqualondë, where nearly everyone has silver and white and pewter hair, and when Russandol asks how it was he laughs and says “Not nearly as different as I’d hoped - the hair blended in but my face certainly didn’t!” like it doesn’t bother him. (Russandol considers, for a moment, whether he actually knows that it does.)

And Tyelkormo, as usual, doesn’t care a whit what people think of his face.

 

When Tyelperinquar is born his hair is bright shining red, like Russandol’s, and as he grows he becomes the spitting image of the woman that Russandol knows to be his mother.

“You look like your uncle,” people tell him, because he doesn’t look like his father and who his mother actually _is_ is a family secret. Tyelperinquar smiles and says thank you and looks less like his uncle by the day — he has his mother’s angled face and his mother’s dark eyes and his mother’s lean build, has Russandol’s red curls and nothing else of him.

Tyelperinquar doesn’t shorten his fathername, doesn’t use his mothername. And Curufinwë never tells anyone — except, perhaps, Tyelkormo — why he didn’t pass down his own fathername, as it was passed down to him.

 

When they arrive on the shores of Beleriand and start learning the language and building their bonds, all of Maedhros’s brothers choose names in Thindarin.

He calls himself Maedhros here, because — he tells people when they ask — Russandol just sounds ugly when Thindarinized. Because — he tells his father, whose name in Thindarin is almost identical to his name in Quenya — it’s not an accurate translation but it’s a lovely name, and names don’t have to be  translated the way other words do. Because — he tells Caranthir, who loves Thindarin and uses his Thindarin name for everything now — here he’ll be seen as first and foremost a member of his family whatever he does, and the memory of Míriel is no longer a curse but a purpose.

Nerdanel isn't here, and the Sea is too wide for her to hear what name Russandol-Maitimo-Maedhros uses now. But Maedhros keeps part of the name she gave him, and tells nobody but Makalaurë (who hates the Thindarin version of name and uses it only when he must, but refuses to translate it differently; says something about Curufinwë and lingustic integrity) the truth of why.


End file.
